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John R. Tanner 

GOVERNOR OF ILLINOIS 

1897-1901 



DIED MAY 23, I90I 



"He would say: 'Paint me as I am.' 



ORATION BY 

Hon. Isaac N. Phillips 

At the Grave 

Oak Ridge Cemetery. Sprinqfield. Illinois 

Sunday, May 26, 1901 







.-TTc 




JOHN R. TANNER, 



Friends and Fellow-Citizens: 

The immediate family and friends of the man 
whose body lies here ready for the grave have thought 
fit that I shonld speak some words ere we tuni from 
this solenm scene forever. In acceding, with much 
diifidence, to their request I assume no clerical or re- 
ligious function. It is not for human impertinence to 
assume to state the account between this man and his 
Maker. Nor shall I enter here upon the task of vin- 
dicating him from the censures of political critics and 
enemies. History is writing a just and final judgment 
upon the work of this man's life, and the true record 
of his vindication will be read of all men long after the 
falsehoods of enmity and the clamors of prejudice 
shall have died away forever. 

ISTor shall I attempt to gild the memory of our de- 
parted friend ^vith the tinsel of soft and meaningless 
eulogy. He would himself be the last to desire it. 
He would, if he could speak, exclaim with Cromwell, 
''Paint me as I am." John R. Tanner was my friend. 



"faithful and just to me," and wliat I stall say here 
I shall say not upon the report of others, but upon my 
own personal knowledge. 

To attempt to cheer the drooping spirits of despair- 
ing friends were now a hopeless task. We can only 
say, in commonplace phrase, he has passed to that 
mysterious realm whither all must go and whence none 
ever returns. And it was, indeed, no ordinary life, 
my friends, thait here went out upon the pulseless tide 
of death. John R. Tanner was one of those strong, 
individual characters such as only a new and free 
country can produce. Conventionalism did not re- 
press the "noble rage" of his spirit, nor did the formal- 
ism and artificiality of social life dwarf and freeze him 
into the common mold. 

When we say this man's origin was humble we do 
not mean that his family extraction was vulgar or that 
his lineage was mean. ^Teither commercial standards 
nor the standards of caste and birth have as yet been 
quite recognized as the proper measures of American 
manhood. In this free land, thank God! we give fools 



P. 
State Ubf fcfy. 



tlieir silks and knaves tbeir wine, and still compla- 
cently say with Robert Burns, "A man's a man- for 
a' that," — and sad will it be for our country when 
we can no longer say it. He who can reckon, as this 
man could, among his progenitors heroes who have 
laid down their lives for their country's cause in three 
American wars, holds a truer patent of nobility than 
he who traces his lineage to the robber barons of a 
feudal age. 

In the veins of John R. Tanne*- coursed the 
fighting blood of a dauntless race. He came from 
that sturdy middle class which has done nearly all the 
important work of our American world — the class 
which has funiislied industry its captains, liberty its 
soldiei-s and civilization its brightest statesmen. He 
belonged to the class whose steady and sure advance- 
ment marks the true progress of the human race. His 
early lot was humble; but over this fact we have no 
cause to gTieve. Let. us rather rejoice that he had the 
advantag'es which are found in the lot of a simple 
conntiT bov in a new and free laud. Let us rejoice 



tliat a life of luxniy and pampered ease did not lull 
him into the repose of inconsequentiality. Despite 
tlie fact that nearly all the immortal deeds recorded in 
American history have been done by men who were 
once poor and whose early lot was toil, we continne 
to exclaim in silly astonishment whenever a man who 
once labored with his hands succeeds in doing great 
deeds and in achieving distinction. I am glad this 
man's youth did not feel the palsying touch of great 
riches. The poverty which denied him learning gave 
him generous compensations. It imposed upon him 
the priceless discipline which fits men to be useful. 
His youth knew the severe struggles, the plain living 
and the self-denial which generate power and make 
men sitrong. 

Our departed friend was in life a practical poli- 
tician of the kind that, it has been said, only become 
statesmen after death. lie did not blink this fact, 
nor shall I. He publicly, more than once, proclaimed 
himself a politician and gloried in the title. He was 
a captain courageous of the caucus and the campaign, 



and Ms career proves that ihe man who is an effective 
politician may be, at the same time, an exalted patriot. 
Cheerfully risking his life for his country in war, 
John E. Tanner was no less devoted to her cause in 
peace. He was not only a iDolitician, but he was a 
politician who succeeded, and who, succeeding, made 
enemies. He was a born leader of men. The talents he 
did not possess himself his mastery commanded in oth- 
ers who were glad to serve him. He knew how to pick 
his soldiers and to assign to each the duty fittest for his 
hand. He understood human nature and knew how 
to make friends; and the friends he made were gen- 
erally steadfast, because he asked of no friend more 
than he gave in return. In his heart was the genial 
climate of good-fellowship. On the day of his death he 
could have called more of the influential men of Illi- 
nois by their christian names than any other man in 
the state. With keenest vision he peered into the 
depths of human hearts, and knew where lay the 
deepest springs of human action. 

I have said this man was successful. Had he 



failed or proven inefficient in bis cliosen field, all who 
liave maligned liim would liave been ready to reward 
liim with the patronizing sniile which veils contempt. 
But by his vast intellectual resources; by his' supreme 
force of character; by his knowledge of men; by that 
undefined magic which we call magnetism, and by the 
absolute confidence he inspired in his foUow^ers, he 
arose to a great height of political renown and success, 
and, of course, those whom he left behind in the race 
and those who could not use him for their purposes 
hurled after him the epithets of impotent rage. 

"He who ascends to mountain tops shall find 
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; 
He who surpasses or subdues mankind 
Must look down on the hate of those below." 

But if John R. Tanner was hated by enemies he 
was in a still gTeater degree believed in and loved by 
his friends. They trusted him, and their trust was not 
in vain. Kot being a politician myself, I dare give 
voice to the seeming paradox that there is no place 
in the whole field of human activity where absolute 
good faith is more essential to permanent and final sue- 



cess than in party politics. Sucli a statement is likely 
to be doubted by those who indulge' the "iridescent 
dream" that the proper way to purify polities is to 
stand completely outside the sphere of all effective 
political work and influence, and hurl hot and de- 
famatory adjectives at every man who show* the 
slightest capacity for producing political results. 

John E. Tanner was not "rocked and dandled into 
power" by fate or fortune. The places he won and 
the distinction he held were such, only, as his own 
Adrile hand seized upon. He fell heir to no political 
mistakes or accidents. He not only carved his own 
political fortune from out the unprepared granite of 
destiny, but by liis great sagacity and devotion he 
made the political fortunes of many others. He 
worked no less zealously, no less intelligently, for his 
friends than for himself. In sober truth it may be said 
that no other public man in Illinois ever gave so un- 
sparingly of his time, his energy and his money for the 
political promotion of others as John E. Tanner. He 
was as sleeplessly vigilant when some other man, 



though not personally his friend, bore the party stand- 
ard as when he was himself the candidate. 

John E. Tanner was a party man — a republican of 
republicans— true to the party principles and ever 
upon the guard-line of party duty. There was not in 
him one fiber of the kind of material out of which a 
party bolter could have been made. From the bot- 
tom of his heart he despised a craven. By an instinct 
that was unerring he fathomed the purposes of adver- 
saries while he himself remained unfathoma,ble. His 
prudence told him when to speak and when to remain 
silent, and Illinois has never known such another mas- 
ter of political strategy as he. With trusted friends 
he was as open as the day, — frank and ingenuous as 
truth itself, — but to the unfriendly, who had no right 
to know his plans, he was a riddle deeper and more 
mysterious than the Sphinx. 

This man possessed a magnetism so strong that it 
often obliterated the lines of party and drew him per- 
sonal support from tliose who disagreed with his polit- 
ical creed. His friends loved him with a devotion 



stronger, even, tlian the sanctions of party fealty. 
And wliy did tliey love liim? They loved him be- 
cause they knew he was gTeat-heartc4 and true; be- 
cause they admired his exuberant strength and manli- 
ness; because they knew he was upright and would 
keep faith with them to the end; that he would never 
show his back to a political enemy, and that if exigen- 
cies required it he would go down with them, un- 
flinchingly, into common disaster and ruin. 

The energy of Gov. Tanner was of the kind that 
"distanced expedition." It was too great, in fact, for 
any human frame to support, and its restless beatings 
at last wore out and destroyed the matchless fabric 
of his physical constitution. His capacity for labor 
was phenomenal. When his clerks and assistants 
were all ready to fall with exhaustion he seemed ready 
to begin anew the work of the day; and his will and 
courage were shown no less by the temerity with 
which he faced overwhelming odds than by the seren- 
ity with which he met reverses and disasters. Nothing 
ever daunted that fierce and imperious spirit, which 



bowed only to death. Political battles he might lose, 
but he never lost heart All the principalities and 
powers of darkness could not have struck panic into 
that dauntless Soul or wnuig from his proud lips a 
craven word. In the midst of pain and disaster, 
dreams of health and success still cheered him on. 
When the last square was broken, he was ready, like 
C'ambroime at Waterloo, to hurl the word of supreme 
defiance at the coalitions which might crush but could 
never conquer him. 

Had the days of this man's prime fallen upon 
some great national crisis he might have proven one 
of the nation's greatest heroes. His mettle and endu- 
rance were of the kind that could carry "a letter to 
Garcia," and bring Garcia himself, if need be, back on 
his shoulders. It is needless to say that only disease 
or death could keep such a man permanently down. 

John E. Tanner was thoroughly informed upon 
the plain facts and the philosophies of common life, 
and his fund of information upon the resources and 
products of the different partvS of the United States 



surpassed that of any man I ever knew. Like all brave 
and forceful men, lie was gentle and kind and loving 
to tkose who had the right to claim his protection. 
His delight was to make those who depended upon 
him happy. The weak found in him a helpful friend. 
His purse was open to the needy, and no cause which 
embraced the public welfare ever found him a laggard. 
In hundreds of instances he succored those who could 
give neither money nor favor nor political influence in 
return. To no other grave in Illinois will so many 
men and women come in after days and say, "Here 
lies the best friend I ever had." 

But now his combats, his trials, his victories and 
his defeats are past and gone. He has said a long 
farewell to "the plumed troop and the big wars that 
make ambition \4i-tue." The spirit-stirring drum 
calls him no more to battle. Whither he has gone 
calumny cannot pursue, and aU the shafts of envy, 
malice and revenge fall broken and harmless upon 
the threshold of his open grave. The brow knit by 
anxiety and earkino' care has relaxed in that sweet 



smile of death which we have to-day beheld upon his 
peaceful face. It may be that the veiled and myste- 
rious messenger wliich summoned our friend hence 
has been kinder to him than we know — ^kinder, per- 
haps, to him than to us. Let us hope that the sum- 
mons which brings such anguish to the living has 
brought to him the peace that passeth understanding. 
And while naught can disturb the serenity which he 
has found in death, so nothing can take from us, the 
living, the treasure he leaves us in the memory of his 
heroic and manly life, — the unfading record of a 
dauntless soul, which held every compact of life in- 
violate and bowed only at the portials of the tomb. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 

■i 

014 754 443 



HBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 754 443 1 



